‘Dirty Dancing’ Remake Gets Screenwriter

We learned earlier this month that High School Musical director Kenny Ortega would be directing a remake of Dirty Dancing, a development that we can partially thank Craig Brewer‘s Footloose remake for. Details that the general public would be interested in, such as who would be starring or what music is being used, haven’t been announced, but Deadline has brought us a crucial update on the film.

According to them, Maria Maggenti has been given the task of scripting the remake, which is said to be moving along at a quick speed. Maggenti recently wrote Monte Carlo, the Selena Gomez vehicle from the beginning of this summer; the work she did on that film is said to have landed her the position. Her career in writing features has been pretty small, but she’s recently written My Name Is Memory and Before I Fall, in addition to directing a few of her own scripts.

Her not having many credits to her name thus far shouldn’t be a real problem, since the main attraction of this will certainly be the (dirty) dancing sequences, which Ortega should be able to bring to the screen — if you judge him by High School Musical, that is. I, in all honesty, don’t have a ton interest in a remake of Dirty Dancing, but that’s also because I don’t have much interest in the original. If anything fun can be pulled off with the material, then maybe I’ll be interested; in the meantime, this isn’t something that I have much of an opinion about.

Are you excited for the Dirty Dancing remake? Is she a screenwriter that you think could deliver a good update?